Molecular manufacturing means "no pollution"

From the Australian Broadcasting Corp's The Future is Small: "A pair of nanopants, long-lasting lipstick or self-cleaning windows won't change the world. But physicist and nanotechnology expert Professor Mick Wilson, Dean of Science at the University of Western Sydney, argues that new products and new ways of making them will bring profound social and economic change…Wilson said that with Drexler's vision of nanotech, as a sort of Meccano or Lego set of about 90 atoms, you could build anything you wanted want from the bottom up. 'As Drexler says, there's no pollution, because you don't make anything that you don't want, you just [take] every atom that you want out of the box and use it,' said Wilson." Prof. Wilson is coauthor of the book Nanotechnology: Basic Science and Emerging Technologies, reviewed as an "excellent comprehensive introduction."

Germany leads EU in nanotech

Elaine Tschorn and Judy Conner at Foresight bring to our attention this report from Campus Germany: "Currently, more than half of Europeís nanotechnology companies are from Germany and of all the patent applications from across the world, German researchers are only beaten by the Americans in terms of quantity…In total, the Government spends around 300 million euros a year on nanotechnology, a figure which, relatively, is higher than that in the USA."

Near-term "edible nanotech"

Judy Conner, Foresight's Public Service Communications Manager, brings this UPI story by Charles Choi to our attention: Nano World: Edible nanotech on the horizon, based on work by physicist Anthony Dinsmore at U Mass Amherst. "We're creating nanoparticles that can assemble themselves and made of materials already found in foods. We're not doing any exotic chemistry," Dinsmore said [with refreshing modesty –CP] of his group's work…"The big issue for new applications in food is that the cost always has to be really low — so that excludes robots." Quite so — when we develop nanoscale robotic devices, we'll have better things to do with them than digestion.–CP

"Nanofood" prospects: 40-60% change by 2015

Helmut Kaiser, a consultancy based in Germany, has bravely published a study on Nanotechnology in Food and Food Processing Industry Worldwide 2003-2006-2010-2015: "Tomorrow we will design food by shaping molecules and atoms…Molecular technologies are disruptive technologies and change the conventional production faster than most scientists expect. It can make the products cheaper, the production more efficient, more safe and more sustainable using less water and chemicals. Producing less waste and using less energy. The impact for the food industry will be a change of 40 to 60 percent by 2015. The change is dramatic, the potentials are immense and the risks too." The report costs 6900 euros, and we'll be happy to review it if they'll send us a free copy.

Multifunctional, nanoscaffolded machines: A chemical manifesto

For techies — Unless you read Pure Appl. Chem. consistently, you may have missed this paper (pdf): Toward replicatable, multifunctional, nanoscaffolded machines. A chemical manifesto from chemists in Germany. "If one, however, views such constructs as three-dimensionally defined noncovalent nanoscaffolding of a multitude of modular functions whose array is replicatable in a nonautonomous way, many pieces of technology needed for their implementation became recently available." They propose "a scheme for the implementation of a prototype generation of replicatable nanomachines." Read More for a summary of the scheme.

Nanosystems animations in Museum of the Future

Two molecular mechanisms from the book Nanosystems have been animated by Gina Miller: a rotary sorter and a molecule binding and orienting mechanism. Such graphics are highly useful for communicating molecular machine concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences. Great job, Gina!

UK Science minister acts on Royal Society nanotech study

From politics.co.uk: "UK Science Minister Lord Sainsbury was responding to a year-long nanotech study conducted by the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering, which recommended precaution and regulation of the controversial industry…Lord Sainsbury pledged a review of current safety regulations to ensure the safeguarding of people's health and the environment, and announced a new cross-government group to co-ordinate all aspects of research into nanoscience to underpin safety assessments." This does not sound much like what one activist group had hoped for (see Read More below). UPDATE: Here's the BBC view.

Helping the poor: a challenge for nanotech

SciDev.net has a piece by Catherine Brahic and David Dickson titled Helping the poor: the real challenge of nanotech: "But there is also the danger that, if such concerns are taken too far, they could block the development of technological innovations that offer a genuine opportunity ó even taking their potential threats and limitations into account ó to substantially increase the health and well-being of those across the developing world. Such is the case with nanotechnology, the manipulation of atoms and molecules to create new materials and processes at the 'nanoscale'." Indeed–CP

Free "Soft Nanomachine Science" report & other Asian Nano News

Those of you trying to track what is going on in nanotech in Asia should visit our friends over at Asian Technology Information Program and monitor their Nano News page, which has some of their nano reports posted free, including Soft Nanomachine Science: "Although there are many unknown factors, it is possible to design a simple soft nanomachine. However, applications for soft nanomachines have not been developed and the technology is still at a very basic research stage." If you can justify it economically, get a subscription and read them all.

NanoMarkets quantifies nanotech disruption

NanoMarkets, a Virginia-based analyst firm, offers free white papers on nanotech application areas (registration required). You can also participate in their web surveys and see survey results. If you have a hefty budget, check out their market reports. We like their slogan: "quantifying the disruptive power of nanotechnology."

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